Hospitals and clinics that offer sophisticated patient care typically have a patient monitoring system that collects and reports patient health information such as vital signs, cardiac assessment, and carbon dioxide output, along with other information. Patient monitoring systems are available from a variety of vendors and collect and display the patient health information in a variety of ways and may use both wired and Wireless approaches to collect and distribute data. For example, a patient monitoring system may be utilized in conjunction with a Wireless telemetry system that collects and transmits data to the patient monitoring system for handling and reporting.
The patient monitoring system analyzes the data of the one or more patients being monitored and sends an alarm when a particular patient parameter triggers an alarm criterion. In some facilities, an alarm notification system may be used in conjunction with the patient monitoring system to notify caregivers (such as nurses) of such alarms. The alarm notification system monitors the patient monitoring system for alarms and notifies appropriate caregivers of the alarms when they occur.
Alarm notification systems are typically used in conjunction with a paging network to distribute alarm information to caregivers. Caregivers are assigned a receiver that receives the alarm information and may also include a transmitter used to send information to the alarm notification system. The alarm notification system is typically treated as a secondary alarm system in that it distributes alarm information to caregivers but is not utilized to actually acknowledge and reset patient monitoring system alarms. The alarm notification system may or may not be made by the same vendor as the patient monitoring system and accordingly, some alarm notification systems are configured to collect and distribute alarm information from patient monitoring systems made by various vendors and using various data transfer protocols.
Depending on the level of sophistication of the alarm notification system, the  system may be able to transmit various types of information to the receivers carried by caregivers. The caregiver receivers may have graphical capability in addition to text display capability and the alarm notification system may transmit graphical information such as a snippet of an electrocardiogram (ECG) waveform collected at about the time of the alarm, which waveform may be displayed on the receiver.
The distribution of alarm information, such as the particular caregivers that are sent alarms and the frequency of such pages, may be configured in various ways on different alarm notification systems. The system may send reminder pages when an initial alarm notification has not been acknowledged and status pages that provide patient health information to one or more caregivers during pre-set intervals.
While conventional alarm notification systems provide several advantageous features for use by hospitals and clinics, especially in conjunction with patient monitoring systems, there are several challenges with respect to the conventional systems that new features and designs may address.
As technology provides caregivers with an ever increasing array of devices used to aid in patient care, caregivers, especially nurses, are asked to carry an increasing number of electronic devices in the workplace. One such device is the receiver associated with an alarm notification system. It would be advantageous if the alarm notification receiver functionality was capable of being added to a caregiver's set of tools without adding to the burden of the caregiver.
A caregiver or technician is typically required to reset a patient monitoring system alarm at either the bedside or a central monitoring station. This configuration is not ideal because the caregivers who are able to recognize and respond to alarms, and reset those alarms if proper, are not typically at the patient's bedside or the central monitoring station. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a system that provides a caregiver more flexibility in responding to alarms.
Currently, certain sophisticated alarm notification systems provide a snippet of an ECG waveform (typically six to nine seconds of data acquired at about the same time as the alarm was triggered) to the caregiver receiver such that a caregiver in the field may assess the waveform upon the receipt of an alarm notification to determine the proper action. A typical approach to sending the waveform data is to send a several second waveform gathered at the time the associated alarm was received. There are some instances when more and/or different information may be desirable. It would be desirable to have a notification system capable of providing a caregiver with more information when needed.
Conventional alarm notification systems may offer bi-directional communication capability, thus permitting the caregiver to acknowledge an alarm. A receiver with more sophisticated communication capabilities would be desirable.
Alarm notification system receivers do not typically have a great deal of onboard computer memory, in an effort to reduce the size, complexity, and expense of the receiver. A system that compensates for this small memory capacity would be beneficial.
In alarm notification systems having a large number of caregiver receivers, one design challenge is determining how to associate the individual receivers with particular caregivers in an efficient manner. A system capable of associating a receiver with a caregiver in an efficient manner would be beneficial.
Another design challenge presented by conventional alarm notification systems relates to the paging methodology. In many cases, an alarm notification system page may be sent to an individual caregiver when an alarm is received in the patient monitoring system. A system that could more efficiently send out pages to appropriate caregivers would be beneficial.
The teachings hereinbelow extend to those embodiments that fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned needs.